You can search the popularity of names dating back to 1880. You can also look up popular names by birth year, decade, or state; popular names for twins; and popular names in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories.

H.T.: USA.gov

According to the White House website, this change will affect over seven million students, who will have to pay an extra $1,000 a year if no action is taken in Congress to prevent the rise before July. Preventing this change, however, comes at a cost. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will cost $6 billion to extend the current interest rates for one year. While Democrats and Republicans both agree it is important to keep student loan interests rates low, they are currently at odds with each other on how to pay for it. On May 8, Senate voted against the first attempt to freeze rates. It was a Democratic proposal that suggested an offset could be achieved ending the tax break for the wealthy. Republicans are countering this idea with their own proposition of attaining the money by eliminating a public health fund created by President Obama’s national health care law (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub.L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, codified as amended at scattered sections of the Internal Revenue Code and in 42 U.S.C.)

If you are interested in tracking the progress of this issue, I suggest you follow the development of both the House and Senate bills (H.R. 4628, S. 2343). You can do this through the following legislative databases:

•  CQ.com’s BillTrack, details the chronological action of every bill. (CQ.com is a Congressional database; access is limited to the Law School building).
• You can also get this information from ProQuest Congressional by selecting Legislative Histories, Bills and Laws on the left and then searching within “Bill Tracking.”  (Access to ProQuest Congressional is limited to the campus or by proxied access using your IU network I.D.).
• Thomas is another wonderful legislative source, and is freely available to the public.  Click on Bills, Resolutions and search in Bill Summary & Status.

Having the history of a bill will also inform you of any members of Congress who have given testimony or a floor statement on the issue, which you can then find in the Congressional Record, which is available through ProQuest Congressional, CQ.com, and Thomas.

By Jen Kulka (Library Intern & Guest Blogger)

The Special Court for Sierra Leone was established in 2002 through an agreement between the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone. Its purpose is to try those responsible for serious violations of humanitarian law and the law of Sierra Leone committed in the territory of Sierra Leone since the end of 1996. Charles Taylor is the most widely known defendant, but 13 individuals were in fact indicted in 2003, with eight trials now complete through the appellate phase. Two of the original indictments were withdrawn due to the deaths of the accused, and Taylor’s trial is now in the appellate phase at the Hague. Thus, the Special Court is nearing completion of its mandate.

For those interested in the activities of the Special Court, a great deal of documentation is available at the Court’s web site, including a transcript of the trial judgment in the Taylor case. Trial and Appeals Chamber decisions are also available for the eight cases now completed. In addition, there is a complete collection of important court documents, such as rules of procedure and evidence, the Special Court Agreement, and rules of detention, as well as annual reports of the Court and various practice directives and directions issued in the course of the Court’s proceedings.

Social media is a part of daily life, but what happens to the online content that you created once you die?

If you have social media profiles set up online, you should create a statement of how you would like your online identity to be handled.

Learn how to create a social media will.

The Law Library has many resources that are potentially quite useful to international law historians. First and foremost, the Library has a substantial collection of books on international law dating back to the mid-19th century. Many of them were originally purchased by the Wells Library, but transferred to the Law Library collection in the mid-1990s. These books can easily be located in IUCAT by means of an Advanced Keyword Search. For example, you might search for the subject keywords “international law” combined with a publication date range of 1850-1935 in order to get an overview of the Library’s older collection of international law monographs. Of course, more specific subject terms are also available. For example, you might use the subject keywords “Hague Peace Conference” to find books in the collection about the 1907 2nd Hague Peace Conference. Remember that IUCAT searches default to All Bloomington Libraries, and that you will need to change the default in order to search just the Law Library’s collection.

The Library also has several databases that would be useful to anyone researching topics in international law history. First, the Library recently subscribed to HeinOnline’s History of International Law Library. This database provides access to more than 725 titles (mostly monographs) and 600,000 pages dating back to 1690. The database can be browsed by broad categories, such as war & peace, international arbitration, law of the sea, and Hague conferences and conventions. Standard HeinOnline field and advanced search templates are also available to search title words, full-text terms, etc.  Second, the Encyclopedia of Public International Law has a broad subject heading, “History of International Law”, which is assigned currently to 96 articles. An Advanced Search template permits one to combine this subject heading with full-text or title words to zero in more precisely on desired articles.

In addition to these databases, the Library also subscribes to several general databases with content relevant to the history of international law. For example, the Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926, documents the development of American and English law during the 19^th century, including the development of international law doctrine. LLMC Digital also includes a number of 19^th and early 20^th century international law treatises.

Finally, the Library has recently subscribed to The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative, and International Law, 1600-1926, which will become available this summer. Its international law component features works of some of the great legal theorists, including Gentili, Grotius, Selden, Zouche, Pufendorf, Bijnkershoek, Wolff, Vattel, Martens, Mackintosh, and Wheaton, among others. Like other components of the Making of Modern Law series, this collection is drawn from the Harvard Law School Library, the Yale Law Library, and the Law Library of Congress.

When using these electronic resources, you should keep in mind that all titles in LLMC Digital, the Making of Modern Law Series, and the HeinOnline History of International Law Library are included in IUCAT, meaning that you can search for content either in IUCAT or using the individual database search interfaces. However, if you want to use IUCAT just to search for printed works in the collection, you can do that by constructing an Advanced Keyword Search that excludes any record containing the keyword “electronic.”

• Lean Finely Textured Beef: The “Pink Slime” Controversy, April 6, 2012

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is the non-partisan public policy research arm of the U.S.  Congress.  Since 1914 this Library of Congress “think tank” has provided Congress with research and objective analysis on a wide variety of topics.  CRS reports and issue briefs are widely regarded as a source of non-partisan, timely, and accurate information, but Congress does not make these reports easily available to the public.  Traditionally, if you wanted a CRS report, you had had to ask your Representative in Congress to send you a paper copy (or a PDF). 

CRS reports are now available through a few commercial vendors, including ProQuest Congressional (1916—present ), which you can access from the Library’s website, under Online Resources.

You can also find collections of CRS reports that are in the public domain at the following sites:

• Open CRS:  searchable database of over 10,000 CRS reports (including many libraries’ collections).
• National Council for Science and the Environment: posts CRS reports on the environment and related topics. The site provides a search engine including title, author, topic and date with over 2000 reports listed.
• Federation of American Scientists posts CRS reports on the following subjects: Intelligence; Military and National Security; Space and Science; and Nuclear, Chemical and Missile Weapons and Proliferation.
• U.S. State Department’s Foreign Press Center posts a small number of reports, updated daily, on subjects including foreign nations, terrorism, foreign assistance, and military affairs.
• Franklin Pierce Law Center posts intellectual property, cyber-law, and electronic commerce related documents from 1993 to the present.
• Thurgood Marshall Law Library has a collection of CRS reports that you can view by subjects such as Taxation, Criminal Law & Procedure, Election Law, Labor and Employment and many others.
• University of North Texas Libraries provides searchable access to over 11,000 CRS reports dating back to 1970. You can also browse by subject.

If you need help finding CRS reports or any other Congressional publications, just ask for assistance at the reference desk!

Here are some last-minute resources and useful information, courtesy of USA.gov:

• Tax Forms and Publications
• Publication 17 — The Only Tax Guide Most Individuals Need (PDF)
• Tax Benefits — You May Qualify
• E-file Your Taxes

You can check your refund status within 72 hours of e-filing or within 4 weeks of mailing a paper return.

If you can’t file your tax return by the deadline, you can request an extension. An extension does not give you additional time to pay if you owe taxes. You’ll need to estimate the amount you owe and submit a payment in order to avoid interest and penalty charges.

Following the formula established in previous years, each of the Jumpstart sessions will begin with a brief review of the basic legal resources so that every student has a complete grasp of the legal research process. The librarians will also provide information about more specialized types of reference books, including practice aids and form books. The Jumpstart sessions will then focus on individual student problems and questions about legal research, with an emphasis on the type of practice student participants will be seeing in the summer.

If you have any questions about the Jumpstart programs, be sure to drop by the Reference Office and speak to a reference librarian. We’d especially like to hear from those of you who already know in what jurisdiction you’ll be working this summer and any special areas of law with which you’ll be dealing. We tailor the Jumpstart sessions to your particular needs in order to make the program a continuing success.

If you wanted to know more about what McCain said, to find his entire statement, or how to cite it in an official source, would you know how to begin this research?

When researching statements made by members of Congress, look at the context of the statement for clues.  Where was the member speaking . . . on the floor of the U.S. House or Senate, in a committee meeting or hearing, at a press conference, at a public event?  Who was the audience?  What was the date?  These clues will lead you to the correct source.

Floor Statements

If you saw video footage of Senator McCain speaking you might recognize the location (blue carpet, dark wooden desks, leather upholstered chairs) as the chamber of the United States Senate.  A news article might give you this information; for example, this article and this article specifically mention that McCain was speaking from the Senate floor.

The first place you could look for information is the member’s website.  Each member of Congress has his or her own website on the House or Senate sites where, amongst other information, you will find the members’ videos and press releases, floor statements, speeches, committee assignments, committee statements, sponsored legislation, and issues.  On Senator McCain’s website, you can easily find links to his floor statement on Syria, a related press release and video.

Where would you look to find an official document?

For floor statements, go to the Congressional Record.  The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress and contains transcripts of floor debates including remarks by members of Congress, their votes, proposed amendments, statements, speeches, conference committee reports, messages from the President, and occasionally the text of bills.  The Congressional Record is published daily, and is available in print and online (FDsys, ProQuest Congressional, HeinOnline, Lexis, Westlaw).  The Congressional Record has its own index (organized alphabetically by subject, name, title of legislation), which has a separate part for Senate and House “History of Bills and Resolutions.”

To find McCain’s statement published in the Congressional Record, you could use FDsys, (Federal Digital System), the repository for authentic U.S. government information.  Use the advanced search and enter the following criteria:

• Date is (March 5, 2012)
• Collection (Congressional Record)
• Congress Member Speaking (McCain)
• Full-Text (Syria)

This search of FDsys should yield one result: 158 Cong. Rec. S1377 – S1380.

Congressional Hearings

Members of Congress often speak before Congressional Committees.  For example, you might have read that Senator McCain, two days after his floor statement on Syria, admonished Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for failing to show leadership by “focusing on diplomatic and political approaches rather than a military intervention” and told Panetta that the United States has failed to show unilateral leadership in the crisis in Syria.  Where would you look to find this exchange?  Again, look for the clues, i.e., location, audience, date.

This article tells you that Secretary Panetta was appearing before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss the situation in Syria.  McCain is the Ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.  The committee’s website contains information on hearings back to the 106^th Congress (1999).  The hearing “to receive testimony on the situation in Syria” occurred March 7, 2012.   There is an archived webcast of the hearing, but no transcript of the proceedings (other than the prepared testimony) on the committee’s website.

To find a transcript of the hearing’s proceedings (including statements by Senator McCain) you could wait for the official hearing to be published by the Government Printing Office (in print or on FDsys), which could take several years, or hope that a commercial database like ProQuest Congressional (PQC) or CQ.com publishes the transcripts sooner.

ProQuest Congressional has two databases of Congressional hearings:

• PDFs of official hearings, 1824-2003
• Selected transcripts, 1988-present

PQC’s database of selected hearings includes transcripts of the proceedings, testimony, Q&A, and submitted statements, and is updated daily.  Use the Advanced Search tab in PQC to search Congressional publications and enter the following criteria:

• McCain and Syria (in all fields including full text)
• Select Hearings only
• Date is March 7, 2012

This search of PQC yields the transcript of proceedings of the hearing: Senate Armed Services Committee, “The Situation in Syria,” Chaired by Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Witnesses: Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta; General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  106 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 9:00 a.m. EST., Wednesday, March 7, 2012.

Historical Research

FDsys

• Congressional Record (daily edition 1994-present)
• Congressional Hearings (1997-present)

ProQuest Congressional

• Congressional Record (permanent edition 1873-1997; daily edition 1985-present)
• Congressional Hearings, searchable PDFs (1824-2003)
• Selected hearing transcripts (1988-present)

HeinOnline

• Congressional Record (permanent edition, Vols. 1-154, 1873-2008; daily edition 1980-2012)

If you need help finding Congressional publications, don’t hesitate to ask for assistance at the reference desk!